Taiwan Today

The 14,000 Chinese ex-POWs who chose freedom instead of slavery are so many living monuments of man's will to be free in spite of all difficulties, obstacles, and intimidations. This choice of theirs demonstrates once more that the Communist tyranny can enslave only men's bodies and that as soon as the victims get away from territories behind the Iron Curtain they will reassert their lost freedom and cherish it so much the more for having suffered its loss even if just temporarily. The refusal of the human spirit to bow to Communist oppression, a refusal which is typified by the steadfast resistance of these 14,000 Chinese heroes to be persuaded to go back to their Communist oppressors, is the best guarantee that the war for the freedom of the human mind may yet be won by the democracies. It will be recalled that when, the Chinese Communist regime first intervened in the Korean War in the fall of 1950, it disclaimed all official responsibility by saying that the men they were sending to fight against the United Nations forces were simply "volunteers." Even down to this very day, the Red troops under the command of Communist Peng Teh-huai are still known as the "Chinese People's Volunteer Army." Now that 14,000 of these men have come to the UN side and have spurned to return to the Communist fold, the cowardly impudence of the Mao Tse-tung regime which commits open aggression under false pretences is revealed in all its nakedness for the whole world to see. Instead of "volunteering" to fight for the Communist aggressor, they have now voluntarily chosen to turn their backs on their erstwhile taskmasters and come to join their compatriots in Taiwan again to lead a free life. The arrival of the 14,000 anti-Communist ex-POWs in Free China is a significant event of the first order, because it shows, as nothing else can how the four hundred million men and women on the Chinese mainland think of the puppet Peiping regime, on the one hand, and how they must be looking with a longing eye in the direction of Taiwan to seek for their eventual liberation from the Communist tyrannical rule, on the other. The puppet regime at Peiping calls itself a "People's Government" and exercises its despotic control in the name of the people. But it has never received any popular mandate, and of course dare not ask for one. If it should ever appeal to the country in the parliamentary sense, a thing which no Communist regime would ever do, it would be immediately disowned and driven from the position which it has usurped by sheer brute force. The real sentiments of the Chinese people can be accurately gauged from the brave act of repudiation which the 14,000 brave men have just made by turning a deaf ear to Communist persuasions and "explanations." These men who have seen the Red terror in action and decide that they have had enough of it typify a cross-section of the country and may be said, in the truest sense, representatives of the Chinese people. By the single act of coming to Taiwan en masse, they have given the lie to the Communist claim of being a "people's democracy" and have, at the same time, shown in an unmistakable way that Taiwan is the home and citadel of Chinese freedom. The freeing of the 14,000 Chinese and 7,600 Korean ex-POWs on January 23 has an even deeper and wider significance on the international than on the national plane. "It is," as The New York Times puts it, "a great blow to the Communist world for it means that the Communist oligarchs can never again be certain of their hold over subjects who now know that they can find freedom in the free world." Commenting on this march to freedom, the New York Herald Tribune declares that "Communism has received a heavy blow in the eyes of all the world." The Philadelphia Inquirer hails the event as "a thundering propaganda victory for the free world" and adds, "Thanks to American firmness, the world knows that men, given their choice, prefer freedom to Communism." The St. Louis Post Dispatch sees the establishment of a new principle in the action taken by the United Nation Command, the principle that no prisoner should be forced to return against his will. In an article entitled "Undermining Sovietism," the Minnea­polis Tribune points out that the United Nations Command has "demonstrated, in a way all the world could see and understand, the subversive principle that people dissatisfied with the Communist regimes under which they live can desert and find new lives in freedom." These press comments add up to a universal acclamation of the newly recognized principle of the voluntary repatriation of prisoners of war, a principle which will henceforth form an essential part of international law. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this welcome principle has been stated by the­ Houston Chronicle cogently and clearly. Writing under the title of "Worst Defeat for Communism," it tells us: "Henceforth, members of the Red armed forces will know that they can come over to the free world without fear of being delivered back to their oppressors. That fact should be a deterrent to renewed Communist aggression; and, in case of war, it should lead to wholesale desertion from the Red armies. While the principle of voluntary repatriation and its usefulness as a deterrent to future aggression are important enough, the process by which these advantages are gained for the free world teaches all peoples on this side of the Iron Curtain an object lesson that should never be forgotten. That lesson has to do with the way in which negotiations with the Communists have been and ought to be conducted. In the words of the New York Daily Mirror, "The Communists will push a situation to the limit and they have usually won their point because we wearied of the contest of wits and gave in to them." This sentence is a succinct summary of Communist tactic, and of the democratic side's failure to meet the Reds on equal terms around the conference table. Having found the cause of the democracies' past failures, the editor of the New York paper points out the lesson to be learnt: "Lesson: In negotiations with the Russians and the Chinese Communists, cut the talk short. Produce a fair and correct program and never retreat an inch. Until they are ready to fight World War III, they will retreat from positions which to them are not matter of principle but of tactic." Instances of Communist acquiescence whenever the democratic side is firm enough can be found, firstly, in President Syngman Rhee's unilateral release of thousands of anti-Communist North Korean prisoners of war last June and, more recently in the action taken by the United Nations Command on January 23 for the return of the 14,000 Chinese and 7,606 Korean ex-POWs to civilian status. In welcoming the safe return of the 14,000 anti-Communist heroes to free Chinese soil on Taiwan, we take pleasure in commending their determination to remain free in spite of years of physical and spiritual anguish and in pointing out some of the consequences of their heroic struggle and the lesson to be taken to heart in our future dealings with Communist aggressors.